BELLEVUE, Wash. — Sen. Patty Murray clung to a razor thin 1 percent lead over Republican Dino Rossi Tuesday night in Washington's Senate race, with more than half a million votes left to be counted.

Murray, the fourth highest ranking Democrat in the Senate, was beating Rossi by about 14,000 votes, giving her a slim 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent advantage among the 60 percent of the share that had been tabulated.

Text Size

POLITICO 44

"We are winning tonight. We will be winning by even more tomorrow. We will win this race," Murray said in the opening line of her speech in downtown Seattle.

A Murray adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the campaign was "feeling good" about its chances because two-thirds of the 40 percent left to be counted is expected to come from King and Snohomish counties, both being areas where the incumbent is leading Rossi.

"She has a strong showing in King County and there are still a lot of votes to be counted," said the Murray aide.
Murray was crushing Rossi in the largest county by a 62 to 38 percent margin. Rossi aides said Monday their candidate would need to win at least 40 percent of King County in order to upend the 18-year-incumbent.

But speaking in Bellevue — a Seattle suburb home to brand name companies like Microsoft, Expedia and Eddie Bauer — Rossi said he wasn't about to concede the race with so many ballots left to be counted.

"Tonight's about a course correction across America," he told a packed crowd inside the Hilton ballroom. "Unfortunately, we don't know what's going to happen in this race yet. It's Washington State, what you gonna do?," he said to laughs.

"We're all going to have to wait a little bit longer to find out what's going to happen here," he continued.

Rossi's campaign stressed that they remained in an enviable position, claiming that only a quarter of the 500,000 outstanding ballots would come from King County.

"The rest of the state, where Rossi has a comfortable lead, will count proportionately more ballots post-Election Day," wrote Rossi campaign manager Pat Shortridge in a memo, noting that Republican stronghold Spokane County comprises almost 22 percent of all remaining ballots.

"We are confident that the margins we are seeing throughout Washington State, combined with the state legislative victories, will put Dino Rossi ahead by an overwhelming margin," Shortridge continued.